Meet the Spartans

After the deeply disposable genre send-ups ‘Date Movie’ and ‘Epic Movie’, double-threat comedy duo Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer turn their attention to a single movie, the digitally buffed-up historical slugfest ‘300’, for this virtually unendurable feature-length skit. One might have thought the original’s absurd chest-rippling machismo and cartoonish villainy funny enough in itself, an assessment this pitifully laughter-free farrago does little to alter. The Thermopylae-inspired plot remains the same in outline but the would-be humorous embellishment has little to offer beyond infantile obviousness.

So, the Spartans in their leather briefs look a bit gay? Let’s have them prancing around to ‘I Will Survive’! Reckon the Spartan educational regime looks a bit tough? Let’s have some poor child beaten to a pulp for fun! And since the ‘300’-themed gags run dry pretty quickly, let’s fill the rest out with projectile vomiting, defecating giant penguins and lookalike japes involving Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and ‘American Idol’. Its relative brevity is a humanitarian gesture.